THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

I knew you were going to copy/paste your pre-made list instead of discussing anything.

The majority of what you posted didn't even address the point I have made. But let me quickly go through your stuff:

- The AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES contained pretty much every conceivable reason that people could come up with in order to justify a military intervention. It authorized the use of the Armed Forces in a certain scenario, but never provided evidence for that scenario. This point is mute.

- Tommy Franks is working on his legacy. However, he makes a pretty good argument for the point I raised before: had the US really been willing to take out the training camps in the northern areas controlled by the US Air Force, it wouldn't have been much of an effort. Invading Baghdad certainly had next to nothing to do with the threat of Answar al-Islam.

- The Senate Select Committee stated that Ansar al-Islam operated in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq, an area that Baghdad had not controlled since 1991. Which is exactly my point. Baghdad had no control over that area. The United States had. And this helps your argument how???
(Hey, just an idea: maybe you should drop the sources that contradict your claims if you're trying to make a coherent argument....)

- Well, Wikipedia...

- I seriously have no idea what the blue bits in the 9/11 Commission report have to do with my argument. Nothing. Probably.

- Yeah. Nothing to do with what I said either.

The United States invaded Afghanistan October 2001 for among other reasons to stop al-Qaeda's accumulation in Afghanistan after the United States was attacked by al-Qaeda in September 2001.

After the United States invaded Afghanistan October 2001, al-Qaeda began December 2001 accumulating in Iraq.

The United States invaded Iraq March 2003 for among other reasons to stop al-Qaeda's accumulation in Iraq.

The United States has not stopped the accumulation of al-Qaeda in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

I stated my opinion:

ican711nm wrote:

The United States invaded Afghanistan October 2001 for among other reasons to stop al-Qaeda's accumulation in Afghanistan after the United States was attacked by al-Qaeda in September 2001.

After the United States invaded Afghanistan October 2001, al-Qaeda began December 2001 accumulating in Iraq.

The United States invaded Iraq March 2003 for among other reasons to stop al-Qaeda's accumulation in Iraq.

The United States has not stopped the accumulation of al-Qaeda in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

I did not claim that Saddam controlled the al-Qaeda in northeastern Iraq, or had any other relationship with al-Qaeda in northeastern Iraq.

I think it irrelevant whether or not Saddam did or did not have control over or have a relationship with the al-Qaeda in northeastern Iraq.

The point is: al-Qaeda began accumulating in northeastern Iraq in December 2001.

ican711nm wrote:

I stated my opinion:

ican711nm wrote:

The United States invaded Afghanistan October 2001 for among other reasons to stop al-Qaeda's accumulation in Afghanistan after the United States was attacked by al-Qaeda in September 2001.

After the United States invaded Afghanistan October 2001, al-Qaeda began December 2001 accumulating in Iraq.

The United States invaded Iraq March 2003 for among other reasons to stop al-Qaeda's accumulation in Iraq.

The United States has not stopped the accumulation of al-Qaeda in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Well, you put events into a timeline, implying that the correlation of certain events equals causation.

You were smart enough not to make a statement like "because the US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, al-Qaeda began accumulating in Iraq in December 2001."

Your neat little list clearly implies that, though.

ican711nm wrote:

I did not claim that Saddam controlled the al-Qaeda in northeastern Iraq, or had any other relationship with al-Qaeda in northeastern Iraq.

Oh, good. In that case, it wasn't Saddam's fault that Answar al-Islam set up camp in the US controlled zones.

And if Saddam can't be blamed for the presence of Answar al-Islam in northeastern Iraq, then the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein can hardly be a consequence of the presence of Answar al-Islam. Right?

Right! (ican's comments are in blue)

ican711nm wrote:

I think it irrelevant whether or not Saddam did or did not have control over or have a relationship with the al-Qaeda in northeastern Iraq.

Well, I think it's highly relevant. The AUMFL you quoted to bolster your case and the whole pre-invasion propaganda pointed out that Saddam was guilty of providing a safe haven for a terrorist organisation.

I think mentioning that Answar al-Islam established its training camps in US-controlled territory is quite important.
I agree.

ican711nm wrote:

The point is: al-Qaeda began accumulating in northeastern Iraq in December 2001.

Well, no, that's wrong. Answar al-Islam was formed and began "accumulating" in NE Iraq. The claims that this was an al Qaeda organisation remain highly suspicious, and you have failed to provide good evidence that this was the case.

Well, no, that's right and not wrong! According to a preponderance of evidence (much of which I posted), that's right and not wrong!

Anyways, I guess I fail to understand what your point really is. Apparently, you seem to be saying that Saddam's complicity in the establishment of those training camps was a reason for the US invasion.

I'm not saying, implying, or even hinting at any such thing.

However, as the training camps were technically founded on US-controlled territory, wouldn't that mean that the United States rather than Sadddam were, in fact, providing a safe haven for a terrorist organisation?

I agree! So the US finally attempted to eliminate that safe haven itself. The only justification for us to remove Saddam was the expectation that in future we could delegate to Saddam's replacement government the exclusion of al-Qaeda from Iraq. We were wrong! In hindsight I conclude we would have been better to continue to take permanent responsibility for the exclusion of al-Qaeda from Iraq, anywhere in Iraq, and leave poor old Saddam alone.

Interesting, ican. You've come around on a couple of issues.

Let's have this discussion again in another two years!

Some good news from iraq.


U.S. frees 42 Iraqi captives in raid

Your side constantly says that no good news can ever come out of Iraq while the US is still there.
So,either this story is false.or your side's claim is false.

Which is it?

cicerone imposter wrote:

Some good news from iraq.


U.S. frees 42 Iraqi captives in raid

Surely you are mistaken.

Your side constantly says that no good news can ever come out of Iraq while the US is still there.
So,either this story is false.or your side's claim is false.

Which is it?

Your side constantly says that no good news can ever come out of Iraq while the US is still there.
So,either this story is false.or your side's claim is false.

May 28, 2007
Militants Widen Reach as Terror Seeps Out of Iraq
By MICHAEL MOSS and SOUAD MEKHENNET

When Muhammad al-Darsi got out of prison in Libya last year after serving time for militant activities, he had one goal: killing Americans in Iraq.

A recruiter he found on the Internet arranged to meet him on a bridge in Damascus, Syria. But when he got there, Mr. Darsi, 24, said the recruiter told him he was not needed in Iraq. Instead, he was drafted into the war that is seeping out of Iraq.

A team of militants from Iraq had traveled to Jordan, where they were preparing attacks on Americans and Jews, Mr. Darsi said the recruiter told him. He asked Mr. Darsi to join them and blow himself up in a crowd of tourists at Queen Alia Airport in Amman.

"I agreed," Mr. Darsi said in a nine-page confession to Jordanian authorities after the plot was broken up.

The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from around the world, is beginning to export fighters and the tactics they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries and beyond, according to American, European and Middle Eastern government officials and interviews with militant leaders in Lebanon, Jordan and London.

Some of the fighters appear to be leaving as part of the waves of Iraqi refugees crossing borders that government officials acknowledge they struggle to control. But others are dispatched from Iraq for specific missions. In the Jordanian airport plot, the authorities said they believed that the bomb maker flew from Baghdad to prepare the explosives for Mr. Darsi.

Estimating the number of fighters leaving Iraq is at least as difficult as it has been to count foreign militants joining the insurgency. But early signs of an exodus are clear, and officials in the United States and the Middle East say the potential for veterans of the insurgency to spread far beyond Iraq is significant.

Maj. Gen. Achraf Rifi, general director of the Internal Security Forces in Lebanon, said in a recent interview that "if any country says it is safe from this, they are putting their heads in the sand."

Last week, the Lebanese Army found itself in a furious battle against a militant group, Fatah al Islam, whose ranks included as many as 50 veterans of the war in Iraq, according to General Rifi. More than 30 Lebanese soldiers were killed fighting the group at a refugee camp near Tripoli.

The army called for outside support. By Friday, the first of eight planeloads of military supplies had arrived from the United States, which called Fatah al Islam "a brutal group of violent extremists."

The group's leader, Shakir al-Abssi, was an associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia who was killed last summer. In an interview with The New York Times earlier this month, Mr. Abssi confirmed reports that Syrian government forces had killed his son-in-law as he tried crossing into Iraq to collaborate with insurgents.

Well there goes Bush's argument that Syria is helping AQ.

A Danger to the Region
Militant leaders warn that the situation in Lebanon is indicative of the spread of fighters. "You have 50 fighters from Iraq in Lebanon now, but with good caution I can say there are a hundred times that many, 5,000 or higher, who are just waiting for the right moment to act," Dr. Mohammad al-Massari, a Saudi dissident in Britain who runs the jihadist Internet forum, Tajdeed.net, said in an interview on Friday. "The flow of fighters is already going back and forth, and the fight will be everywhere until the United States is willing to cease and desist."

There are signs of that traffic in and out of Iraq in other places.

In Saudi Arabia last month, government officials said they had arrested 172 men who had plans to attack oil installations, public officials and military posts, and some of the men appeared to have trained in Iraq.

Officials in Europe have said in interviews that they are trying to monitor small numbers of Muslim men who have returned home after traveling for short periods to Iraq, where they were likely to have fought alongside insurgents.

One of them, an Iraqi-born Dutch citizen, Wesam al-Delaema, was accused by United States prosecutors of making repeated trips to Iraq from his home in the Netherlands to prepare instructional videos on making roadside bombs, charges he denies. He was extradited to the United States in January and charged with conspiring to kill American citizens, possessing a destructive device and teaching the making or use of explosives.

In an April 17 report written for the United States government, Dennis Pluchinsky, a former senior intelligence analyst at the State Department, said battle-hardened militants from Iraq posed a greater threat to the West than extremists who trained in Afghanistan because Iraq had become a laboratory for urban guerrilla tactics.

Nice to know the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein.
And the world is a much safer place because we invaded Iraq.
Maybe we can increase world security by attacking Iran and/or Syria.

"There are some operational parallels between the urban terrorist activity in Iraq and the urban environments in Europe and the United States," Mr. Pluchinsky wrote. "More relevant terrorist skills are transferable from Iraq to Europe than from Afghanistan to Europe," he went on, citing the use of safe houses, surveillance, bomb making and mortars.

A top American military official who tracks terrorism in Iraq and the surrounding region, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said: "Do I think in the future the jihad will be fueled from the battlefield of Iraq? Yes. More so than the battlefield of Afghanistan."

Militants in Iraq are turning out instructional videos and electronic newsletters on the Internet that lay out their playbook for a startling array of techniques, from encryption to booby-trapped bombs to surface-to-air missiles, and those manuals are circulating freely in cyberspace.

And tactics common in Iraq are showing up in other parts of the world. In Somalia and Algeria, for example, recent suicide bombings have been accompanied by the release of taped testimonials by the bombers, a longtime terrorist practice embraced by insurgents in Iraq.

Problems in Jordan Disrupting a Plot
In his confession, Mr. Darsi said that he had been jailed in Libya for six years for associating with a militant group there, and that when he got out he wanted to rejoin the fight. He found a recruiter and, at the recruiter's e-mail directions, Mr. Darsi said he flew to Istanbul, then traveled south to Damascus. By prearrangement, he dressed in black pants and a black sweater and met the recruiter on the bridge just after evening prayers.

"I told him I want to join the mujahedeen in Iraq," Mr. Darsi said in his statement, each page of which bears his signature and thumbprint. Through his lawyer, Mr. Darsi agreed to be interviewed in prison, but Jordanian officials declined to make him available.

Mr. Darsi, in his statement, said the recruiter "told me that he will not send me to Iraq, that he will put me in charge of a military operation inside Jordan."

Over the next few days, Mr. Darsi says, he was blindfolded and taken to safe houses in Syria where he was prepared for his mission. To maximize civilian deaths, he was told to survey incoming flights and then detonate his bomb after joining a crowd of arriving tourists as they boarded a bus outside the terminal. In his statement he said he was told that the bag of explosives would have buttons "and that by pressing the buttons, the explosion will take place."

With a Nokia phone and a contact's phone number in hand, Mr. Darsi drove south to Amman in a borrowed car.

Officials at the General Intelligence Department in Jordan had picked up vague references to the planned attack from sources in Syria. But the investigation was complicated by the fact that the plotters were moving between Jordan and Syria, which have strained relations.

American officials have accused the Syrians of being indifferent to the way militants use their country as a gateway to Iraq. In Damascus, Mounir Ali, a Ministry of Information spokesman, conceded that controlling Syria's long border with Iraq was difficult and blamed the Americans for not supplying border-control technology. But he said that Syria, too, was apprehensive about militant attacks. "We are very afraid of this problem created in Iraq," he said. "The religious problem. The sectarian one. It is going to affect everybody and primarily Syria."

Although the Jordanians identified the safe houses in Syria used by the airport plotters, they could not raid them. Instead, they broke the case when they picked up the two men in Zarqa and then arrested Mr. Naimi as he arrived from Baghdad, according to court records and interviews with government officials.

Those men, in turn, gave up Mr. Darsi, who was grabbed as he crossed from Syria into Jordan.

The Jordanian Security Court acquitted one man and convicted six others in connection with the airport plot, three of whom remain fugitives, including a Saudi identified as Turki Nasr Abdellah, who is believed to have helped recruit Mr. Darsi.

Mr. Abidi, whose nickname is the Father of Innocence, is believed to still be in Syria.

At the hearing last month, in which he was sentenced to life in prison, Mr. Darsi struck a defiant tone. Although he never made it to Iraq, he said he had pursued his vision of jihad, according to his lawyer, Abdel Rahman al-Majali.

Mr. Darsi stood at the barred wooden defendant's box, shouted "God is great!" and recited verses from the Koran aimed at justifying violent jihad, according to Mr. Majali. Before being led away, Mr. Darsi told the court, "I came here to fight against Zionists and occupiers."

Margot Williams contributed reporting.

"I came here to fight against Zionists and occupiers."

Iran will soon announce they are a peaceful nuclear power, (whilst calling for the destruction of the zionist entity in the middle east).

Quote:

Iran will soon announce they are a peaceful nuclear power, (whilst calling for the destruction of the zionist entity in the middle east).

Let us remind ourselves that Iran's call for the elmination of the current regime in Israel is not the same as the call for the destruction of Israel, as many righties allude to.

As I have mentioned before George Bush is perhaps the greatest friend the terrorist have today. His invasion of Iraq has given terrorist a training ground second to none.

...

It's no wonder we can't win any wars with Bush in office. He never listens to nor understands our enemy. He just feeding the American public ideological garbage that have nice soundbites.

Great for ignorant minds; tell me everything in one sentence.

Congressional Intelligence Report 09/08/2006
REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
Conclusion 6. Postwar information indicates that the Intelligence Community accurately assessed that al-Qa'ida affiliate group Ansar al-Islam operated in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq, an area that Baghdad had not controlled since 1991.

9/11 Commission Report

2 THE FOUNDATION OF THE NEW TERRORISM

2.1 A DECLARATION OF WAR
In February 1998, the 40-year-old Saudi exile Usama Bin Ladin and a fugitive Egyptian physician, Ayman al Zawahiri, arranged from their Afghan headquarters for an Arabic newspaper in London to publish what they termed a fatwa issued in the name of a "World Islamic Front." A fatwa is normally an interpretation of Islamic law by a respected Islamic authority, but neither Bin Ladin, Zawahiri, nor the three others who signed this statement were scholars of Islamic law. Claiming that America had declared war against God and his messenger, they called for the murder of any American, anywhere on earth, as the "individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."1

Three months later, when interviewed in Afghanistan by ABC-TV, Bin Ladin enlarged on these themes.2 He claimed it was more important for Muslims to kill Americans than to kill other infidels. "It is far better for anyone to kill a single American soldier than to squander his efforts on other activities," he said. Asked whether he approved of terrorism and of attacks on civilians, he replied: "We believe that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. Nothing could stop you except perhaps retaliation in kind. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets."
...
Plans to attack the United States were developed with unwavering single-mindedness throughout the 1990s. Bin Ladin saw himself as called "to follow in the footsteps of the Messenger and to communicate his message to all nations,"5 and to serve as the rallying point and organizer of a new kind of war to destroy America and bring the world to Islam.
...
9/11 Commission Report
2.3 THE RISE OF BIN LADIN AND AL QAEDA (1988-1992)
...
Bin Ladin understood better than most of the volunteers the extent to which the continuation and eventual success of the jihad in Afghanistan depended on an increasingly complex, almost worldwide organization. This organization included a financial support network that came to be known as the "Golden Chain," put together mainly by financiers in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states. Donations flowed through charities or other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Bin Ladin and the "Afghan Arabs" drew largely on funds raised by this network, whose agents roamed world markets to buy arms and supplies for the mujahideen, or "holy warriors."21
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Bin Ladin now had a vision of himself as head of an international jihad confederation. In Sudan, he established an "Islamic Army Shura" that was to serve as the coordinating body for the consortium of terrorist groups with which he was forging alliances. It was composed of his own al Qaeda Shura together with leaders or representatives of terrorist organizations that were still independent. In building this Islamic army, he enlisted groups from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Oman, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Somalia, and Eritrea. Al Qaeda also established cooperative but less formal relationships with other extremist groups from these same countries; from the African states of Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Uganda; and from the Southeast Asian states of Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Bin Ladin maintained connections in the Bosnian conflict as well.37 The groundwork for a true global terrorist network was being laid.
...
Bin Ladin seemed willing to include in the confederation terrorists from almost every corner of the Muslim world. His vision mirrored that of Sudan's Islamist leader, Turabi, who convened a series of meetings under the label Popular Arab and Islamic Conference around the time of Bin Ladin's arrival in that country. Delegations of violent Islamist extremists came from all the groups represented in Bin Ladin's Islamic Army Shura. Representatives also came from organizations such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas, and Hezbollah.51
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9/11 Commission Report
2.5 AL QAEDA'S RENEWAL IN AFGHANISTAN (1996-1998)
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The Taliban seemed to open the doors to all who wanted to come to Afghanistan to train in the camps. The alliance with the Taliban provided al Qaeda a sanctuary in which to train and indoctrinate fighters and terrorists, import weapons, forge ties with other jihad groups and leaders, and plot and staff terrorist schemes. While Bin Ladin maintained his own al Qaeda guesthouses and camps for vetting and training recruits, he also provided support to and benefited from the broad infrastructure of such facilities in Afghanistan made available to the global network of Islamist movements. U.S. intelligence estimates put the total number of fighters who underwent instruction in Bin Ladin-supported camps in Afghanistan from 1996 through 9/11 at 10,000 to 20,000.78
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Now effectively merged with Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad,82 al Qaeda promised to become the general headquarters for international terrorism, without the need for the Islamic Army Shura. Bin Ladin was prepared to pick up where he had left off in Sudan. He was ready to strike at "the head of the snake."
...
On February 23, 1998, Bin Ladin issued his public fatwa. The language had been in negotiation for some time, as part of the merger under way between Bin Ladin's organization and Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Less than a month after the publication of the fatwa, the teams that were to carry out the embassy attacks were being pulled together in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The timing and content of their instructions indicate that the decision to launch the attacks had been made by the time the fatwa was issued.88
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9/11 Commission Report
The attack on the U.S. embassy in Nairobi destroyed the embassy and killed 12 Americans and 201 others, almost all Kenyans. About 5,000 people were injured. The attack on the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam killed 11 more people, none of them Americans. Interviewed later about the deaths of the Africans, Bin Ladin answered that "when it becomes apparent that it would be impossible to repel these Americans without assaulting them, even if this involved the killing of Muslims, this is permissible under Islam." Asked if he had indeed masterminded these bombings, Bin Ladin said that the World Islamic Front for jihad against "Jews and Crusaders" had issued a "crystal clear" fatwa. If the instigation for jihad against the Jews and the Americans to liberate the holy places "is considered a crime," he said, "let history be a witness that I am a criminal."93
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National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
The Commission closed on August 21, 2004. This site is archived.

www.dni.gov/release_letter_101105.html
Summary of Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi July 9, 2005.
The war in Iraq is central to al Qa'ida's global jihad.
The war will not end with an American departure.[/b]
The strategic vision is one of inevitable conflict with a call by al-Zawahiri for political action equal to military action.
More than half the struggle is taking place "in the battlefield of the media."
Popular support must be maintained at least until jihadist rule has been established.

Shiite sacred mosque explosion in Samarra
...
In Baghdad, National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie blamed religious zealots such as the al-Qaida terror network, telling Al-Arabiya television that the attack was an attempt "to pull Iraq toward civil war."

The country's most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sent instructions to his followers forbidding attacks on Sunni mosques, especially the major ones in Baghdad. He called for seven days of mourning, his aides said.
...
President Jalal Talabani condemned the attack and called for restraint, saying the attack was designed to sabotage talks on a government of national unity following the Dec. 15 parliamentary election.

Capture of al-Qaeda mastermind of Golden Mosque explosion
[Search argument "Al-Qaeda responsible for Samarra Mosque Explosion."]
...
Abu Qudama operated under terrorist cell leader Haitham al-Badri.

Al-Badri was "a known terrorist," a member of Ansar al-Sunna before he joined terror group al Qaeda in Iraq, al-Rubaie said.

However, Iraqi authorities "were not aware of his being the mastermind behind the golden mosque explosion" until Abu Qudama's arrest, al-Rubaie said.
"The sole reason behind his action was to drive a wedge between the Shiites and Sunnis and to ignite and trigger a sectarian war in this country," al-Rubaie said, referring to al-Badri.
…

xingu wrote:

Quote:

Iran will soon announce they are a peaceful nuclear power, (whilst calling for the destruction of the zionist entity in the middle east).

Let us remind ourselves that Iran's call for the elmination of the current regime in Israel is not the same as the call for the destruction of Israel, as many righties allude to.

Thats true. I only mentioned it to bring home the complete failure of the neo con policies in Iraq.

I refuse to believe you guys are truly that gullible: that you actually believe calling for "the destruction of the zionist entity in the middle east" is merely a call for the elimination by removal of the current regime in Israel and not the elimination of the state of Israel.

Your form of ridiculous propaganda was once prevalent in the 30s and 40s.